A psychiatrist from Australia explains why psychiatry is a bullshit pseudo-science :

Doctor Allen Frances who chaired the current version of the DSM-IV (Bible of Psychiatry) interviewed by wired magazine :

Every so often Al Frances says something that seems to surprise even him. Just now, for instance, in the predawn darkness of his comfortable, rambling home in Carmel, California, he has broken off his exercise routine to declare that “there is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it.” Then an odd, reflective look crosses his face, as if he’s taking in the strangeness of this scene: Allen Frances, lead editor of the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (universally known as the DSM-IV), the guy who wrote the book on mental illness, confessing that “these concepts are virtually impossible to define precisely with bright lines at the boundaries.”

Psychiatry: The Science of Lies by Thomas Szasz (Thomas Szasz was once a psychiatrist before he turned professor and he is now deceased)

For more than half a century Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to a radical critique of psychiatry. His latest work, Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, is a culmination of his life’s work: to portray the integral role of deception in the history and practice of psychiatry. Szasz argues that the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness stands in the same relationship to the diagnosis and treatment of bodily illness that the forgery of a painting does to the original masterpiece. Art historians and the legal system seek to distinguish forgeries from originals. Those concerned with medicine, on the other hand-physicians, patients, politicians, health insurance providers, and legal professionals-take the opposite stance when faced with the challenge of distinguishing everyday problems in living from bodily diseases, systematically authenticating nondiseases as diseases. The boundary between disease and nondisease-genuine and imitation, truth and falsehood-thus becomes arbitrary and uncertain. There is neither glory nor profit in correctly demarcating what counts as medical illness and medical healing from what does not. Individuals and families wishing to protect themselves from medically and politically authenticated charlatanry are left to their own intellectual and moral resources to make critical decisions about human dilemmas miscategorized as "mental diseases" and about medicalized responses misidentified as "psychiatric treatments." Delivering his sophisticated analysis in lucid prose and with a sharp wit, Szasz continues to engage and challenge readers of all backgrounds.

This book offers a comprehensive Marxist critique of the business of mental health, demonstrating how the prerogatives of neoliberal capitalism for productive, self-governing citizens have allowed the discourse on mental illness to expand beyond the psychiatric institution into many previously untouched areas of public and private life including the home, school and the workplace. Through historical and contemporary analysis of psy-professional knowledge-claims and practices, Bruce Cohen shows how the extension of psychiatric authority can only be fully comprehended through the systematic theorising of power relations within capitalist society. From schizophrenia and hysteria to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, from spinning chairs and lobotomies to shock treatment and antidepressants, from the incarceration of working class women in the nineteenth century to the torture of prisoners of the ‘war on terror’ in the twenty-first, Psychiatric Hegemony is an uncompromising account of mental health ideology in neoliberal society.

Bruce Cohen has written the best book yet linking mental health to the central characteristics of capitalist society. In this fearless, passionate, and beautifully written book, Cohen illuminates the impact of the “psy-professions” on women, youth, the workplace, the criminal justice system, and militarism associated with endless war. Cohen not only analyzes these problems but also suggests realistic strategies for changing the powerful “hegemony” of the psy-professions. The book is an inspiring, paradigm-shifting achievement.” (Howard Waitzkin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico)

“A compelling account of the role of neoliberal capitalism in shaping and globalising psychiatric practice. Essential reading.” (Derek Summerfield, Consultant Psychiatrist, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and Honorary Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, University of London)

“This books places mental health in its proper social context, offering a compelling alternative to the medicalisation of social experience.” (Frank Furedi, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Kent)

P.S this thread is inspired by three people calling me by the idiotic bullshit psuedo-scientific term 'schizophrenic' here including Longbowman who had it in his signature quote for a while. I criticized psychiatry as bullshit pseudo-science for many years now on this forum and you can see that I am in good company ^^^ above.